February 19, 2010

All Purpose Apology for Tiger Woods

sorrypup2a.jpg "What a revoltin' development this is!" -- Chester A. Riley

Tiger Woods, that wily old horndog, finally felt that enough time had passed that he was ready for his "amends that must be made" close-up. Because he is Tiger Woods, a wealthy businessman whose cash flow has been crimped by extra-curricular quim of late, he can afford one of the very best apologies money can buy. And he got it.

With no little rehearsal Woods delivered his ritual mea culpa about as well as could be expected. Smooth, forthright, sanctimonious, and with only a whiff of irritation that his honey-pot gravy train had come off the rails. He'd worked it up enough with professional media coaches that it actually had the flavor of real sincerity to it, even as it ran the standard changes of stars saying they're sorry. I'm sure the whole spectacle cost him a lot in time and money, but, well, "mistaeks wur made," and it had to be done.

If only Tiger had come to me before he drove into a tree I could have just given him my "Standard Apology for 21st Century Schmucks" out of the goodness of my heart. It would have saved him at least $100,000 in speech writing fees and media consulting. And he wouldn't have had to spend weeks sitting around in some half-baked 12-Step Program for Horndogs. I've been honing my "Standard Apology" for years now. It goes like this:


First let me say that I'm sorry I'm saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry because after you hear this apology you'll be sorry too. So I'm sorry for making you feel sorry by having to say I'm sorry.

I begin by noting that at present, as above, I'm sorry. Yes, I am very, very sorry. It was all my fault and I am sorry for it all. I failed, first and foremost, to understand that on tour golf is a game limited to eighteen holes.

Duffers cannot understand the pressures on the pros. It's hard to wind down after an exhausting day strolling on a very long lawn to polite applause. You just somehow have to keep driving, and pitching, and wedging, and putting long into the wee-hours of the morning. No matter how many pars, birdies, and eagles I got, I was always looking for that perfect hole-in-one to round off the round. What began as confusion became compulsion powered by room service.

I am sorry, as always, for what I did. It was thoughtless and rude even though it was intensely gratifying at the time I did it. It wasn't really what I meant or felt in my heart, but was just what I wanted to do. Many have taken my deeds to mean other than what I said they meant after I was discovered. Why, I even meant them to mean other than what they meant when I did them.

Well, the damage those deeds did is done and I can't undo my doing that dropped me the do-do. All I can do is stand here strapped in the pillory of the present as all those whom I have so wrongly (but without malice I swear) harmed cry like the little girly-men they are, especially the girls. Their heartbreak is now my ass ache. I cringe to see them writhe with the bleeding agony of those raw wounds I ripped open by my harsh and unconsidered actions.

Have I said I feel really bad about this? I do. I feel even worse that I, through my abject failure to realize how deeply the awl of my deeds would bore into them, even, yea, down to the living blue-veined bone, that I simply stood by and allowed the burning salt of my senseless screwups to pour without limit into their raw and festering souls. I am, as I said, deeply sorry and feel bad besides.

But even inside the cloistered walls of my expensive institution, I have heard the rising torrent of justifiable outrage; the howls of those whose most sacred, festering and inane values I have eviscerated with the senseless whirring chain-saw of my betrayals.

To them I offer, in deep and abject humility -- since I am, because I did what I did, lower than a cockroach's stool stuck to the bottom of a homeless hermit's shabby sandal in the storm drains of Las Vegas -- my most sincere if unworthy apology.

I have heard the skin-shuddering shrieks of those whose souls have been sliced into bloody gobbets of flesh by my dull-edged errors. Though I am unworthy to feel that pain, I feel it still as if it were a red-hot 3/4 inch Makita drill bit driven into the base of my skull and left there set on "Wash-Rinse-Repeat."

In closing, I come to you today penitent, conscience-stricken, regretful and contrite. I have been deep-fried by your pain and deeply regret my actions. I repent them with every shred of my soul. I am, for having hurt your feelings and bruised your tender buttons, a base and abject man mortified by my cheesy, contemptible, insignificant,. shabby, small, and pathetic being. I know now the low things I have done and I am filled with remorse, melancholy, shame, and self-reproach. If I could have myself flogged fleshless by an flock of Carmelite nuns on Methamphetamine I would so. But I can't locate those sisters right now -- and they would be suspect if they showed up.

But I digress.

I am compelled by my inner idiot and 12-step sponsor to say that I bleed for you, wish only to console you, empathize with you, and open my heart in an anguished lament that my actions, wittingly or unwittingly, have raised upon your soul these unlanced boils of existential angst. It is my hope you will allow me to lance them with my sincerity and bandage them in the saline soaked cloth of this apology.

I come before you today an abashed,
chagrined,
conscience-stricken,
guilty,
shamed,
demeaned,
crestfallen,
humiliated,
penitent,
mortified,
and broken man.

I can only seek, humbly, that one thing that will make me whole again after ripping the flesh of your feelings so senselessly. The single thing that would bring infinite balm to my being would be your acceptance of this, my guilty apology, and your eventual, even at the last ding-dong of doom, forgiveness.

In this simpering sorrytude I dwell in the hope to be one day resurrected to the realm of the acceptably American.

Thank you for letting me share.

Posted by Vanderleun at February 19, 2010 10:34 PM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

I play baseball, not golf, but professional golf is surely the hardest test of nerve in sport. The combination of personality factors that made Woods into the greatest lone wolf of all time also arrested his development. And for anyone, adversity is more natural and easier to deal with than adulation.
He would be far better off shedding the image and being whatever he is. But he won't.

Posted by: james wilson at February 19, 2010 11:16 PM

I can't wait to see what kind of apologia pro vita sua you could craft for Amy Bishop.

Posted by: Connecticut Yankee at February 19, 2010 11:26 PM

THIS is an apology, Gerard:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/126490/saturday-night-live-rahm-emanuel

Posted by: Jewel at February 20, 2010 12:59 AM

"flogged fleshless by an flock of Carmelite nuns on Methamphetamine"

Wonderful as always, Gerard, but this brought tears to my eyes.

Posted by: ahem at February 20, 2010 5:38 AM

Yeah, man.

If anything is a bigger shuck than the current national addiction to apologies, though, it's the whole "sexual addiction" scam.

"I know I'm married, or living with somebody, but my panties get to tingling and I just can't help myself. It's not my fault, though, because I'm an addict, and my husband or wife should feel sorry for me."

"Oh yeah, and blow jobs don't count."

Codependents Unanimous scores again. Disgusting.

Posted by: Rob De Witt at February 20, 2010 7:12 AM

Disgusting is right. The whole concept of addiction is cheapened by crap like this. Heroin in an addiction- you stop, and your body raises holy hell. Nicotine is an addiction. Ask anyone who has stopped smoking. Same thing with alcohol. Sex? Sorry. A compulsion, maybe, but not an addiction.
I couldn't turn on the radio, or walk by a TV yesterday without hearing this sorry-ass horndog. He even dragged in some vapid garbage out of his "Buddhist beliefs" to try to throw some quasi-religious piety into the mix.
And one other thing- The dude is a fucking Golfer. Sorry, but golfers are simply not important. Anyone who makes a role model out of a golfer deserves all the disappointment they get.
All Tiger Woods is sorry about is getting caught.

JWM

Posted by: jwm at February 20, 2010 7:40 AM

Nice job, most succinct of grovellers, but sending her the puppy w an embroidered LLBean collar saying "Sorry" would have melted even hearts of stone. On a Steve Jobs' minimalist stage, spotlit and fuzzy and adorable.
Cute trumps abject....

Posted by: Retriever at February 20, 2010 8:19 AM

To sort of paraphrase Oscar Wilde...

"Anyone who can hear Tigers Woods apologizing without bursting into laughter must surely have a heart of stone."

Posted by: Good Ole Charlie at February 20, 2010 8:37 AM

This is so cynical. Have to profoundly disagree with you on this one Gerard. Sure there are plenty of people who make insincere amends/apologies for outer benefits and not inner redemption--- and who can know anyone's true (usually mixed) motivations except over time?--- but for those who truly hit bottom, this can be a very holy place to be. I don't think he did it expecting the world to forgive him. Some will, some won't. He did it for far deeper reasons.

Posted by: Webutante at February 20, 2010 8:53 AM

It seems to have become a trend for the rich and famous to immediately attend "rehab" (drug, alcohol, sex, dwarf-tossing, what have you) after one has been caught with their hand firmly ensconced in the cookie jar.
At some point in time also comes a public apology, with the rehab stint paraded around as proof of the sinners earnest attempt at mitigating their indescretions.
It's worked for virtually EVERYONE else so far (there's even a reality TV show with heidi fliess, tom sizemore, mackenzie phillips, dennis rodman and a host of unbelievably old-looking people my age in it).
Hey, if it works for drugged-out actors and musicians, why not tiger?

Posted by: Cheezburgrrr at February 20, 2010 11:47 AM

The first rule he should have learned is that others may think you are a god - but your family by blood and your family by choice have gone into the bathroom just after you got done with your business.

They know better. And you got to live with them. Welcome to reality champ-chump.

Posted by: Mikey NTH at February 20, 2010 12:23 PM

My informal sampling of friends and relatives shows that NOT ONE OF THEM could stand to watch even a news report on his apology. In every instance they reached for the remote and switched to ANYTHING but "Woods apologizes" news.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at February 20, 2010 1:27 PM

I for one was glad to hear him invoke his long lost, but now useful, Buddist religion to help him through his PR travails.

I think I'll resurrect "Dewey's Pre-Hab Program":

"Like Re-hab, only you complete the program in advance of the offense that will ultimately turn you into a social pariah. Attend around your schedule, instead of the media’s! Complete in advance of potentially hazardous duty, (i.e. appearing on “The View”) for added insurance against the wrath of the PC Squad. Note: You will automatically receive 100 Sensitivity Credits with enrollment in any of the Pre-hab programs."

I don't know why it never took off. I should contact Algore's agent.

Posted by: Dewey From Detroit at February 20, 2010 1:36 PM

Arthur, it is not necessary to have met you to know you.
The fact is, Woods is a beast to the little people once he is out of range of the cameras. Like, Hillary. This is not a secret.
How the rich or powerful behave toward those who have no defenses against them is the easiest and most reliable way to judge someone you wouldn't otherwise know.
The fact that Ty Cobb was a beast does not affect my admiration for what he accomplished, but Cobb was no hypocrite. Hypocrisy demands a willing audience.

Posted by: james wilson at February 20, 2010 4:28 PM

I overheard an undergrad at school casually demolish the whole charade: "Tiger Woods called the press conference to announce that he's changing his name to Cheetah."

Posted by: Mike Anderson at February 21, 2010 3:33 AM

A public apology is about as meaningless as the clown running this country.

Posted by: Cilla Mitchell, Galveston, Texas at February 21, 2010 6:41 AM

Thanks for the quote from Chester A. Riley, and using a word I've not seen in years (quim).

Posted by: Sam L. at February 21, 2010 10:16 AM

See "Inside the Secret Service" for dirt on HRC and how she treats the little people.

For how Tiger Woods treats others, his numerous affairs while his wife and kids were at home is prima facie evidence. You don't have to know that he has a thug for a caddie to understand this. Why would you have a thug as a caddie if you did not like thugs?

Posted by: Austin at February 22, 2010 7:30 AM

"Why would you have a thug as a caddie if you did not like thugs?"
Because he's good with his wood?

Posted by: Cheezburgrrr at February 22, 2010 1:53 PM

Frankly he should never have made a public apology. He is a golfer, and better at it than anyone has ever been. What he sticks in who, and how it effects his personal life, isn't the worlds business.

Posted by: mark smith at March 4, 2010 10:48 AM